Aspects of the present disclosure are in the technical field of Machine Vision.
Aspects of the present disclosure are also in the technical field of Anti-counterfeiting and Item Serialization for the purposes of Track-and-Trace supply chain security.
Prior art in this field exists for the purpose of uniquely identifying items. Some methods are based on overt or covert, marks deliberately applied to an item, usually by means of printing. Other methods rely on natural variations in a material substrate (fiber orientation in paper for example) to be used as a unique identifier. Significant deficiencies exist in the prior art. These include the need to deliberately add overt or covert, marks to the item in addition to any marks specialized system that perceives the variations is necessary; also, for substrates that do not present a readily identifiable unique feature some plastic films for example) this method cannot be employed. These deficiencies seriously reduce the utility of these methods in the technical fields considered here.